


The Courage of Stars

by Lady_in_Red



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Bittersweet, Canon Compliant, Canonical Character Death, Coda, F/M, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Motherhood, Moving On, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-25
Updated: 2019-05-25
Packaged: 2020-03-17 07:46:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,799
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18960928
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lady_in_Red/pseuds/Lady_in_Red
Summary: "Ask me in ten years," Tyrion said.Brienne, ten years after the Last War.





	The Courage of Stars

**Author's Note:**

> _How can such a night be beautiful? he asked himself. Why would the stars want to look down on such as me? - Jaime IV, A Storm of Swords_

“There’s the bear.” Jaime pointed up with his lone hand.

She glanced over, startled to hear him speak. He’d been quiet all day as they rode south. On horseback, it wouldn’t take much longer to reach King’s Landing.

“We left the bear back at Harrenhal,” Brienne reminded him, shuddering at the thought.

Ser Jaime smiled, a soft, gentle thing that ought not be on such a man’s face. Except he wasn’t just the vicious captive she’d first met, the Kingslayer, all sharp smiles and sharper words even without a blade in his hand.

Walton’s men were clustered around the fire, but Brienne had chosen to bed down away from them, and to her surprise, Ser Jaime had followed. Qyburn had come over to tend to his wrist, but otherwise they’d been left alone. If he meant to protect her virtue, he needn’t have worried. Walton’s men were only concerned with safeguarding Ser Jaime. She was simply another body to feed and provide a horse.

“What else do you see?” she asked. Her septa had thought stargazing frivolous, and kept Brienne inside struggling with needlework and dancing.

He turned his face back to the sky. His brow furrowed as he looked. “The mermaid.” He pointed to a swirl of stars that in no way looked like a mermaid. “The kraken.” He pointed again.

She squinted but still couldn’t see it, and made a noncommittal noise.

“The great turtle.”

She snorted. “Now you’re just making them up.”

“Maybe.” His smile widened. “But every time you see that cluster of stars, you’re going to think ‘turtle.’”

Brienne laughed, but he was wrong. As she travelled Westeros over the next few years, she would look up at those stars and think _Jaime_.

* * *

 

The island was quiet when Brienne reached the top of the bluff and sat on a flat rock. Generations of the island’s children had worn it smooth, gazing out at the mainland by day and the stars above by night.

Far below, the waves rolled peacefully under a moonless sky. And above, a multitude of stars marched endlessly through the dark.

She sighed and lay back, not caring about the chill seeping through her cloak. Winter on Tarth was not like winter in the North, and she thanked the Seven for that. That meant she heard the rustling in the dry grasses before she was pounced upon, and was ready for it.

“What you looking at, Mama?” His pale face was very close, peering at her curiously.

“The sky,” she said, pointing up.

He twisted around, his cloak bunching up under him as he flopped next to her. He sighed. “The sky is boring.”

“Did you know there are pictures in the stars?” Brienne was just beginning to try to interest him in learning more about the world, the things he would need to know when he was the Evenstar. He was still too little to read, happy running wild all day with a wooden sword and a half-blind terrier he’d found abandoned in a field.

He sat up, squinting furiously, the freckles splashed across his nose scrunched up. “I don’t see them. Are you having a joke on me, Mama?”

“Playing a joke? No. Look.” She scanned the heavens and pointed. “Look right there. Do you see that very bright star in the North?”

He squished up against her, the better to follow where she was pointing. His little body was warm, a bit sweaty. He must’ve seen her leave and given chase. His nanny was forever losing track of him and giving Brienne heart pains. “Yes,” he finally said. “What is it? Is that the Evenstar?”

A laugh burst out of her. “No, that’s in the west, and we can’t see it now. No, look around that star. You’ll see a few other bright stars, they make kind of a square. That’s the great bear. The brightest star is his nose.”

“Like your bear?” He patted her shoulder, where pale lines still marked her encounter with Locke’s bear.

“Maybe. Maybe he ran away to the heavens so no one would fight him again.”

He giggled. “That’s silly. Tell me more pictures.”

Brienne turned her eyes to the stars she always sought. “Look to the west. You’ll see three stars in a row. Do you see them?”

He scooted under her arm and pulled her cloak over him. “Yes. Is it a snake?”

“No, that’s a sword belt. Do you see the red star just below them?” He nodded. “That’s his sword.”

“Like yours, with the rubies.”

Brienne’s breath stuttered in her chest. She’d never thought of that, in all these years. “If you look up from his belt, you’ll see his shoulders, two bright points, and below you’ll see his feet. That’s the Warrior. You can always look to him for courage.” She barely got out the words with a steady voice.

The Warrior was who she’d come to visit tonight. For courage, as well.

“Who showed you the pictures? Your father?” He was still blessedly at an age when he thought his parents wise.

“No, he was a friend. During the Last War, we spent a lot of time at night on the parapets of Winterfell.” Not enough time, but what little there’d been she held in her heart, safe and only a little cracked by what came after.

“Do they have the same stars in King’s Landing?” he asked, twisting his neck to look at her. Big blue eyes looked up earnestly below sandy lashes. He had his father’s face, thank goodness, and her eyes, but there was something wild in him, something neither of herself nor his father. Her boy was funny, too, and charming. The other children around Evenfall loved him, and he had all the servants in his largely benevolent power.

Perhaps when they looked at him they saw what she did, her miracle, the only child the gods had granted her, and he’d almost died at birth.

“Yes, they have the same stars in King’s Landing, and Horn Hill, and Winterfell, and Casterly Rock. The same endless sky, all over the seven kingdoms.” She shouldn’t have mentioned Casterly Rock, but he didn’t seem to notice. As far as her son was concerned, King’s Landing was just as far as anywhere else. He’d never left the island.

But he soon would. The heads of the great houses were gathering again at King’s Landing to select a new monarch. Brienne suspected the process would not go as smoothly this time. King Bran Stark had lasted barely a decade, his health already failing so far from the North. Jon Snow was coming to bring him north of the Wall, where King Bran said he needed to go. No one questioned it.

The Hand of the King had seen this day coming years ago. Tyrion had taken Brienne aside five years ago, and suggested that she ask to be released from the Kingsguard. Her father had just taken ill with a wasting illness, and the Stormlands needed another strong lord or lady to support Lord Gendry of Storm’s End. Her father had filled that role, as Gendry couldn’t even read when he was legitimized, and knew little and less about running a great house or dealing with bannermen.

And then, as she was preparing to leave, the most unexpected thing happened. The grand maester’s cousin, the new Lord Tarly, came to visit the Red Keep. Duncan was tall and strapping like his cousin Dickon had been, and kind. Gentle and patient, and for some reason enthralled with her. Sam started to tease him that he was only there to visit Ser Brienne.

As soon as Tyrion got wind of the Lord of Horn Hill’s interest, he’d taken her aside and reminded her that his brother would want her to be happy, to live her life with someone to share it. Duncan Tarly became a worthy sparring partner, Lord Paramount of the Stormlands, and the supportive lord consort of the Evenstar, Ser Brienne of Tarth. Two years after they arrived in Tarth, their son was born. He seemed destined to be an only child, but he was the best child ever born, so that didn’t matter.

She ruffled his messy hair and kissed his temple. “Don’t worry about King’s Landing. There will be children to play with, and if you’re very good, perhaps the Hand will show you the dragon skulls that survived the Last War.”

He smiled eagerly, then his smile turned sly. “Could I have a slice of cake when we get back?”

Brienne sighed and levered herself up to a sitting position. Her back protested mightily. “You may ask the cook, but don’t bother her if she’s gone to bed. You should be sleeping too. We’ve a long journey ahead of us.”

He hopped to his feet. “An adventure, like you used to have.”

Gods, she hoped not. He was still so small, so sheltered from the horrors of the world outside this island. “We shall see. Off with you.”

“Good-night, Mama.” He turned and dashed off down the hill, cloak flying behind him. Utterly fearless.

“Good-night, Jaime,” she whispered when he was already out of sight.

Brienne tipped her face up to the sky again, easily finding the Warrior with his red sword. “I blame you for that boy,” she said with a sigh. “You would’ve loved him.” Her voice broke on that. Her Jaime was Duncan’s, no question, but she saw so much of Jaime Lannister in him at times, it ached. Duncan hadn’t even balked when she suggested the name, to his credit. Perhaps Sam had told him something of what happened in the war. Brienne never had. She couldn’t.

She came out here to talk to Jaime sometimes, when his voice in her head grew faint. Tonight she poured her worries out about the summit at the Dragonpit, and the likely outcome. She’d had ravens from Winterfell, and Dorne, and King’s Landing, and Duncan had heard from the Eyrie, Highgarden, and Pyke. Everyone intended to suggest breaking up the remaining six kingdoms. The only question would be who would rule the Crownlands, or if they’d be swallowed up by the Stormlands or the Reach.

That would make her a queen. Ridiculous. Looking up at the sky, Brienne could almost hear him laughing. Jaime was the last man to ever want a crown on his head, he would understand her reluctance. They’d both seen kings die, queens buried, princes and princesses traded like pieces on a cyvasse board.

But it was better than war. She had to trust that.

He didn’t answer. He never did. But Brienne felt him there.

She stood and turned away from the sea, away from the stars, and went back to her castle, her family, her life.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

>  _You taught me the courage of stars before you left_  
>  _How light carries on endlessly, even after death_  
>  _With shortness of breath, you explained the infinite_  
>  _How rare and beautiful it is to even exist_  
>  \- “Saturn,” Sleeping at Last


End file.
